November

September: Week Three

Jesse had skipped his first doctor's appointment, not being particularly in the mood for being poked and prodded and possibly stared at by twenty interns. However, this meant that he'd been a: scheduled for a psychological reevaluation and b: given a sedative and an emergency evening appointment. When he came to, he was in his bed and there was a note on his pillow with the date of his next appointment circled in red. Jesse hated this damn place.

In the same week, he'd also managed to fail three exams: one in history (feeling that the text they'd been given was summarily inaccurate, Jesse had made his own adjustments), one in childrearing (he had unflinchingly refused to demonstrate proper nursing positions), and the last in cosmetology, simply because he'd slept through the whole damn thing. All in all, he felt, it had been a pretty accomplished week. Ortega and Honesty, on the other hand, had both gotten perfect scores on all of the five exams they'd had that week and so both had been given an extra four hours of free time.

Jesse lying down in his room when the door opened. He looked up to where Vichy was just getting home from an extra private counseling session. He had a small piece of paper clutched tightly in his hands, and he was twisting it into little knots with his fingers.
"What's wrong?"
Vichy shook his head, came over to the bed and sat down.
"Nothing." he chewed on his lip for a minute. "Aniston wants our relationship to become exclusive."
Jesse blinked at him.
"OK..."
Vichy stared at the paper in his hands
"I don't think I want that." his voice was even softer than usual. Jesse knew Aniston, or had met him a few times, at least. He seemed like a nice guy, comparatively, but then again, Jesse had never done anything to piss him off so he supposed he didn't really know. You could always tell the nice guys from the rest, Jesse reflected, by how they acted when you had just pissed them off. At any rate, what he definitely did know was that Aniston had been seeing Vichy since the first week Jesse had gotten here. He was a mid-ranking officer, but accomplished in his field, and seemed kind enough, if a little dull. Vichy, however, had seemed enamored of him, at least for the first week and a half.
"So tell him you're not ready."
Vichy shook his head.
"I can't."
Jesse crooked an eyebrow, feeling sure he was missing something, and propped himself up onto one elbow. Vichy frowned, rubbed one hand across his eyes.
"Do you remember last week, my birthday, Wednesday, when I snuck out?"
Jesse nodded.
"I met up with Aniston. He said he wanted to celebrate my birthday." Vichy's ears were turning red. "We went to the woods."
Jesse was sure this story wasn't headed anywhere good.
"And it was fun, and we just talked and then we kinda messed around, but he said it wasn't a big deal, and that everything would be fine and no one would find out and all that stuff. Then on Tuesday, he tells me he wants us to be exclusive. I said I didn't want to, that I'm young and still wanted to spend some time in the program, and he said that he'd tell the rest of my potentials about us. Let them know what kind of carrier I was. Tell them we weren't even really together before I'd let him hit. He said he'd go to the counselors about me. He said I'd end up in Rowe House."
Vichy swallowed quickly.
"Then today, I got a note from the counselors, telling me to come to the office. He told them I was...eager. He didn't tell them what we did, but he said-" Vichy's voice was wavering. He swallowed again. "They flipped out on me. I have to go to eight extra hours of behavior seminar. If Aniston tells them what really happened...Jesse, I don't know what to do." Vichy shook his head, chewed on the edge of his thumb.
"I can't goddamn live like this."